The OLAP Report has written a 36 page review of PerformancePoint Server 2007 (PPS). It can be purchased from olapreport.com as part of a group package for $1,495 USD that includes other product reviews. However, you can also download it for free from from Microsoft. Click here to download the pdf file. I thought the OLAP Report did a good job in their thorough analysis of the software. It does cover the finer details, such as how PerformancePoint dimensions (excluding time) use parent/child Analysis Services dimensions. This can cause performance issues in larger dimensions since aggregations are only stored at the leaf and top levels of a hierarchy. This is an issue that I have encountered while using PPS. However, the upside to this is the improved cube processing speed as PPS frequently rebuilds its cubes. The report did not cover the data integration aspects. This seems to be an area that many people overlook when evaluating products.

I enjoyed how OLAP Report compared PPS to its competitors such as Cognos Planning (IBM), Hyperion Planning (Oracle), TM1, Cartesis (Business Objects), and OutlookSoft (SAP). They predict that PPS will be a major player in the Performance Management marketplace. And I quote, “In time, after it has had three major releases and expertise has built up, this product will probably be doing to the performance management marketplace what Analysis Services has already done to the OLAP server market.” Overall, I recommend reading this report whether you’re considering purchasing the product or have already been using it.